This is a project in the ethography, oral history and cultural ecology of a contemporary community of Maya Indian political exiles. This community, Rincon Chamula, is unique in that is is made up almost entirely of descendants of a small nucleus of political exiles who were banished from their home community in 1911 as punishment for their role in a celebrated revitalization movement related to social and political events which were tied to the early phase of the Mexican Revolution. Rincon Chamula is particularly interesting as a case study in oral history in that 1) it is relatively small and isolated, and 2) it has remained culturally conservative in that is has not become assimilated into the surrounding Mestizo (Spanish-speaking) communities. I propose to find out how this community sees itself, its distinctive ethnic identity, its historical background, and its future. Because I will also be recording oral history about Rincon Chamula from neighboring communities, Indian and Mestizo, this project will also be a controlled comparison in oral history of the same events as they are conceived of and told by different communities with different interests and cultural first premises. In broadest terms, my proposed reseach should yield: 1) an ethnographic description of a small community of modern political exiles; 2) a documentation of how this community has adapted itself, cognitively and physically, to a fast-changing modern Mexico; 3) a specific test of the idea that history itself may be a key adaptive strategy in the cultural persistence of this community of Indians who were forcibly relocated, and 4) a detailed case study in the malleability of conceptions of the recent past as held by people from different communities of different ethnic backgrounds who nevertheless are neighbors. The final goal of my analysis will be a discussion of cognitive relativism, of ways in which different ethnic, political and economic facts springing from different cultural premises condition adjustment to similar physical environments.